Continuation of Ped Damage Overhaul, with bug fixes and new features. Credit goes to HJ and fitfondue, the original authors, along with Hundsfott, who maintains the original mod page.
This is a modified version of the original Ped Damage Overhaul mod by HJ and fitfondue that HJ graciously gave me permission to work on and upload under a new mod page. It retains the functionality of the original mod while introducing important bug fixes and some additional features.
Use F10 when in game to open the mod menu. You can set Euphoria Mod status in there.
Legacy Mod Features by HJ and fitfondue
This mod enhances gunfights, making them more varied, dynamic, and engaging throughout the game. NPCs react realistically: stumbling when running with injured legs, gasping for breath when shot, writhing in pain when fatally wounded, groaning in pools of their own blood until death, and clutching wounds while staggering after being hit.
Nearly all features are customizable via the ini file, allowing you to enable, disable, or adjust settings to craft your preferred experience. The mod exclusively modifies human NPC behaviors and attributes, leaving animals and other elements unaffected.
It comes in three versions:
Light Version:
NPCs react dynamically to where they’re shot: leg shots cause stumbling during movement, hand shots disarm them, and torso shots make them stagger.
When an NPC’s health falls below a critical threshold, they collapse and enter distinct stages of dying, each with randomized behaviors, ultimately succumbing to blood loss.
NPCs may audibly react in desperate situations (e.g., panicking, begging, or cursing), based on a probability system.
A bleeding mechanic causes NPCs to lose health over time after sustaining fatal injuries, with randomized bleed-out durations for variety.
NPCs set on fire burn for an extended period, with a small chance of surviving (though severely weakened afterward).
When shot, NPCs may stay downed for a random duration based on their health, allowing players to temporarily “knock the wind out” of opponents.
All behaviors include updated, randomized movement and pain sounds to enhance immersion.
Standard Version:
All Light Version features are included, plus the following:
NPC health and player damage have been rebalanced for a more satisfying experience, eliminating “bullet sponge” enemies.
NPC damage output is adjusted to provide a greater challenge, as they no longer absorb excessive damage.
Weapons now feel distinct in combat, with their condition and ammo type (e.g., special ammo in a well-maintained weapon) delivering a more impactful experience.
NPC accuracy decreases as their health declines, making them less precise shots when wounded.
Arm and leg shots deal reduced damage to NPCs compared to torso or headshots.
All NPCs, including lawmen, can be disarmed.
Hogtying an NPC disarms them, though escaped NPCs may still draw a hidden knife to retaliate.
Overhaul Version:
All Standard Version features are included, plus the following:
Core drain (health, stamina, and Dead Eye) is moderately increased, making hunting and purchasing food essential for survival.
Cores are fully depleted upon death, increasing the stakes of combat.
An additional 25% of money is lost upon death, adding further consequences to defeat.
Additional Features In PDO Reloaded
This custom version of PDO currently includes a number of changes, most of which are configurable or optional via the ini file :
Enhanced Death Sounds
NPCs no longer reuse the same two or three vanilla pain sounds when dying. PDO adds hundreds of imported audio cues, from screams and moans to gurgles and death rattles as NPCs writhe and fade. This makes combat feel more brutal and immersive.
Improved Death Mechanics
Dying NPCs now react to gunshots, flinching under impact. Some in the final stage may twitch or spasm, mimicking nervous system failure, with movements slowing as death nears, adding realism to their demise.
Dynamic Disarm Surrender System
Disarming NPCs now leads to varied outcomes based on their personality. Brave ones might fight back, while cowards may flee, all backed by in-game voice lines for immersion. And turning your back on them now might not be the wisest choice…
Included are disarm lines and ambient comments made by either Arthur or John during the disarm phase, with a number of “execution” lines if you choose to kill peds who surrender or run from you after surrendering.
Improved Dying State Progression
DyingStateProgression replaces the default NPC dying process. Instead of a ticking bleed-out value and kill timer, NPCs now progress naturally through the three Dying States (Badly Wounded → Critically Wounded → Near Death) with random durations per stage, ending in death. This creates a more natural bleed-out effect, with NPC’s hitting State 3 much more often than before, going limp and experiencing spasms if you have that feature turned on.
The amount of time they spend in the Dying States is configurable and has different values for free-roam and missions, so you can have longer bleedouts during free-roam, and shorter ones for missions.
Bug Fixes
This version of PDO contains a growing number of bug fixes and performance enhancements, including a fix for the “standing around bleeding” issue that plagued the original PDO and the semi-invisible gun bug that occurred after disarming a ped.
Important Note: The current version is compatible with most mods that alter the Euphoria physics, with a few notable exceptions.
W.E.R.O
Writhing animations in the dying states are broken. Peds simply lay still. It’s an issue with how the physics or skeletons are set up in WERO.
R.E.M
Same problem as WERO. Broken writhing.
A.R.E.P
Compatible.
A.E.M
Compatible.
LLRO
Compatible.
C.E.R.R
Compatible.
File Structure
Inside the .zip file, you’ll find this :
PedDamageOverhaul.asi – The main script. Identical across all three versions.
PedDamageOverhaul.ini – The ini in which all settings are defined. The default version is “Standard”, and comes with the main file.
\lml\PDO Reloaded\ – Contains sound banks for custom sounds. You must install this or the pain/death sounds will be animals!
INSTALLATION
It is critical that you delete any old version of legacy Ped Damage Overhaul before installing this version! If you use an old PDO .ini file with my version, you will BREAK the mod.
Download and install ScriptHook V2 and Lenny’s Mod Loader. That is a hard requirement. Without ScriptHook V2 or with other .asi hooks, the script will break. Without LML, you will hear animal sounds instead of injury sounds.
Download this mod. Extract PedDamageOverhaul.ini, PedDamageOverhaul.asi & the lml folder into Red Dead Redemption 2 main directory, alongside RDR2.exe
You can edit PedDamageOverhaul.ini to enable or disable any feature you want, along with modifying NPC and
player weapon damage and maximum/minimum health. Beyond the new features that I’ve added, the settings are left at their “defaults” that the original mod creator set.
Tool file:
A small tool which lets you easily modify human arterial bleedout chances and other flags for arterial zones in any peddamageinfo.meta file. Only requires .NET Framework 4.8, which comes bundled with Windows 10 & 11.
Changelog:
Version 1.29
Added locational damage modifiers for the player. (inside of BODY PART DAMAGE MODIFIERS in the .ini)
Knife damage can now apply bleeding to NPC’s, toggleable in the ini. See BleedWhenStabbed.
Added the ability for NPC’s to disarm the player by shooting their weapon arm. See EnablePlayerDisarming & PlayerDisarmingChance.
Added DisableHitmarker and StaticReticle options. DisableHitmarker removes the white and red hitmarkers, StaticReticle prevents the reticle from turning red when targeting a ped.
Added extra blood effects to shotgun and rolling block head gore. Can disable in the .ini via DismembermentBloodFX.
Added EHS_VarmintInstakill option to allow Varmint rifles to cause lethal headshots.
Fixed incorrect player health values and modified ped health management.
Headshots now kill excluded story NPC’s when Enhanced Headshots is enabled, regardless of their exclusionary status, preventing bugged behavior.
Misc bugfixes.
Version 1.28.6
Hotfix to add a missing headbone to the Enhanced Headshot list (14283). Was partly responsible for a number of missing headshot detections.
Version 1.28.5
Added several new death rattle/gurgle sound packs for males.
Added toggles for extra headshot effects so they can be disabled.
Mitigated peds getting up after headshots as best I can for now. There’s also TakedownTimer and a final FailsafeTimer in the .ini if all else fails.
Removed broken legacy falling incapacitation code which was breaking the script if users enabled it.
Fixed legacy bug which caused peds to not correctly sync health states. This lead to the first headshot being ignored in some cases, or incorrect damage being applied in others.
A number of smaller bug fixes relating to health states.
Version 1.28
Added scripted dismemberment system. It doesn’t do anything fancy (yet) beyond fixing a long-standing PDO issue; allowing dismemberments to occur on the first shot with certain weapons, even with raw damage modifiers set to 30%.
Improved arterial bleed detection. Now it’s instant.
Added ArterialBleedIgnoreDSChance. Dictates the chance that a ped with an arterial body shot will initially ignore dying states thresholds, allowing them to get up and attempt to flee first.
Added workaround for native bug that caused peds with headshot arterials to consistently get back up after the shot.
Fixed explosive weapons not causing dismemberment with 30% raw damage modifiers.
Fixed knives appearing in peds holsters during dying states.
Fixed Deadeye causing excessive pushdown force by adding DeadEyePushdownForceDivision, which divides pushdown force when Deadeye is active.
Peds who pass into DS3 and die without player intervention (ie being shot again) are now correctly attributed as player-caused deaths.
Version 1.27
Fixed hip-fire not applying raw damage multipliers.
Fixed adjusted damage modifiers not updating correctly under certain conditions.
DyingStateDamageMultiplier can be set to only apply to torso shots via DyingStateMultiplierOnlyTorso = 1.
Fixed lawmen speaking combat dialogue during dying states.
Added full Munitions mod support.
Lots of other minor bugfixes and code-cleanups.
Credits:
Ped Damage Overhaul mod
